


Pick up the Pieces

by Arsenic



Category: Titans (TV 2018)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Families of Choice, Gen, Pets, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:20:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21796750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arsenic/pseuds/Arsenic
Summary: Gar's still not doing okay.  Dick's got an errand he needs to run.  Jason...Jason is chilling in Bludhaven.  As you do.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 131
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Pick up the Pieces

**Author's Note:**

  * For [antivillain (museofspeed)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/museofspeed/gifts).



> Unbeta'ed, apologies for any/all mistakes.
> 
> Hope you enjoy, treatee, this is a bit of an amalgam of some of the things you seemed to be interested in, I'm crossing my fingers that some element of it speaks to you. Thank you for prompting, it was a joy to get to write in this fandom.

Gar doesn’t blame Rachel for leaving with Donna. He completely gets why she needed to, and he believes she’ll come back. None of that changes the fact that he misses her in a way so deep that if he allows himself to think about it, it sears like acid, itches like something nesting beneath his skin.

When he closes his eyes, he tastes blood on his tongue, the sick victory-rush of his brainwashed-animal mind upon capturing prey. So he keeps them open.

He wishes Jason was there, Jason who runs on anger rather than regret, and maybe could teach Gar how to. He wishes Cliff or Larry or Rhea were here, to call him “kid” and make him feel like nothing is entirely his fault. He wishes Connor had a little bit more maturity, and could be someone to talk to, to have an understanding with.

But wishes and horses and all that—although, considering he could probably make himself into a horse, maybe that’s not the best metaphor for Gar’s problem. The point is, none of those things are the case.

There’s Rose. Gar thinks she probably could understand more than most, given the decision to spy on them, and then, later, to kill her own father. Also, it’s clear she misses Jason, too. But she’s got another person inside her head, a _brother_ , and they’re working that out between them. Gar…Gar’s reasonably less important than that.

Gar makes it almost four days without sleeping after Rachel leaves, which is two days after Bruce Wayne does. And that’s something, at least, that he doesn’t wake himself screaming in front of Batman. Instead, it’s Kori and Dick who are there pulling him into a sitting position, holding his hair when he pukes, telling him he’s safe.

The coffee he’s been mainlining burns coming up. He’s in the training room, for fuck’s sake, he doesn’t even remember why he’s there or what he was doing when he dozed off. He sobs, “Sorry, sorry,” without being entirely certain what he’s apologizing for, except maybe all of it. Maybe surviving when he shouldn’t have in the first place, becoming someone who was so easy to capture, to manipulate, someone so easy to leave. Someone who _should_ be left.

His throat hurts, from the screaming, probably, or the coffee, or just from how long he was awake. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know anything.

* * *

Gar surfaces a little more easily the next time. He’s in the medical room, in the bed where Connor had almost died, Rose had slept off being almost-dead. Krypto’s in the bed with him, which is ridiculously comforting. He opens his eyes enough to notice that Kori and Rose are playing Chinese checkers. He watches for a bit before Rose looks over and says, “Oh, hey there.”

“Gar,” Kori says, and stands up, coming to the side of the bed Krypto is not monopolizing. She pours some water from a pitcher and hands it to him. “We gave you a little something. Dick thought you might not have been sleeping. We should have noticed sooner.”

She’s got her hand on the back of his neck and it’s everything he wants, just that simple point of contact in the moment. He takes several sips of water and says, “Didn’t mean to…” He’s not sure what the end of that sentence is. There are so many options. In the end he goes with the easy, if accurate, “worry you.”

Jericho signs something and Gar’s about to mention that he doesn’t know ASL when Rose translates. “Jericho says it’s objectively logical to worry about someone who’s been through what you’ve been through. Which is his very polite and geeky way of saying being mind-raped is a pretty big deal.”

Gar blinks. “You...you both have a point.”

Kori lowers the arm on the bed and sits down, pulling Gar more firmly into her side. He doesn’t fight. Mostly he wants to disappear into her, never to be seen or heard from again. 

“I mean,” Rose sounds uncertain, “I think you’re doing pretty okay. If that uh…for what that’s worth.”

Gar turns just enough to look at her and ask, “How are you?”

Rose opens her mouth, shuts it, and then says, “Pretty fucked up.” Jericho signs something that contextually, and body-language wise, seems to be agreement.

“I’m not having the best couple of days, either, just in case anyone was wondering,” Kori says, sounding amused.

“All on the same page, then,” Gar murmurs.

Kori squeezes him a little harder. “Power in numbers, yeah?”

“Pretty sure that’s not how it works,” Rose says.

“Pretty sure people aren’t supposed to be able to reknit every bone in their body or turn into a tiger, but here we are,” Kori counters.

It’s a good argument. Gar wishes he believed the premise.

* * *

Gar’s trying and failing to pay attention to a video game when Dick sits down next to him. Gar says, “I usually don’t suck this hard at this.”

“Pretty sure none of us are at our best, just now,” Dick says easily enough. “At least it’s low stakes.”

Gar finds himself huffing out a laugh at that. It’s not much, but it’s something, and it feels good. He pauses the game. “You get extra lives, too, so that helps.”

It’s Dick’s turn to give a small laugh. “So, listen, you can say no to this, and I’m not gonna take it personally.”

Gar tilts his head.

“I need to go find Jason. Bruce says he hasn’t taken the second tracker out, so I really mean I need to go talk him back into the fold, and I think I might have more success with you there. But if you feel better staying here with the others, that’s okay. This isn’t your problem.”

“Isn’t it?”

Dick takes a slow breath. “I’m not trying to suggest you’re not part of the team.”

“I know,” Gar says. He does. Dick’s fucked this up six ways from Sunday from the start, but never once has he made Gar feel like he doesn’t belong.

“But you didn’t run Jason off.”

“And you did?”

Dick takes the question seriously. “My unwillingness to be honest—”

Gar shakes his head. “I’m not saying mistakes weren’t made. Mistakes were made. Hoo boy, were mistakes made. But Jason always had one foot out the door. Because if you leave first, people can’t leave you.”

Dick is silent for several moments. “You think Bruce shouldn’t have sent him here in the first place.”

“I think Bruce Wayne wasn’t the first person to fuck Jason up, but he definitely stepped right in line.” Gar bites his lip. “I don’t think it was intentional, just uh…I mean. It seems like he cares about you guys. His Robins.”

“Yeah, I’ve come to conclusion that Bruce does the best he can playing cards with a less-than-full deck.”

“Anyway, I’m just saying, with Jason. He wants to be _needed_. Because you don’t throw away something you need. And most of the time he doesn’t even see himself as wanted, I don’t think.”

Dick nods slowly. “My question still stands. I’d like it if you came with.”

Gar runs a hand over his face. In the tower, he’s unlikely to hurt anyone, if for no other reason than the team can take care of themselves. But it’s hardly like that guarantees safety—his or other people’s. It was the tower Cadmus took him from, after all. And even if staying did mean certain safety, Gar isn’t sure fearing the outside world for the rest of his life is exactly the best plan. “Where is he? Jason.”

“Bludhaven. Because evidently Gotham wasn’t enough of a shithole for him.”

The laugh that knocks out of Gar is real and bright. “Sure, sounds like a great place for a vacation.”

* * *

Jason and his bike are squatting in an abandoned mall. He’s acquired an angry mutt the size of a soccer ball with tan and white markings and a missing eye. The dog goes for Dick’s _crotch_ and Gar thinks, _Jesus_ , but not really much else before realizing he has shifted. For a moment, he’s pretty sure he’s the tiger—he’s usually the tiger—but he doesn’t feel as large and his sense of smell is different. Also, his eyesight up close is pretty shitty. 

Then Jason says, “Hey there, Call of the Wild.”

Gar means to ask, “Am a I motherfucking _wolf?_ ” He seems to, in fact, be a motherfucking wolf, though, so what comes out is a series of short barks and growls.

Terror-the-Terrier recognizes Wolfgar’s dominance and backs the hell away from Dick, which was all Gar really wanted in the first place. Dick, who’s been staring at Gar, looks over at Jason and says, “So, uh, you got a dog.”

“Snake, meet Dick and Gar. Gar and Dick, Snake.”

Gar noses at Snake, who warily sniffs back. Dick says, “I’m sorry.”

Jason rubs a hand over his face and asks, “For what fucking part, Grayson? For being a better Robin than me? For being his real kid, or the closest thing to? For not being street trash? For the fact that I am? For—”

Dick has moved into Jason’s space and there’s a few moments where Gar thinks he and Snake might have to break up two Batman-trained ninjas and that’s going to _suck._ Only, Jason lets his blows be parried fairly easily and only struggles a bit when Dick pulls him into an embrace.

“For not making you stay,” Dick says quietly, but wolves hear _everything_ , evidently. Dick continues, “For not making you learn how wrong you are about all of that.”

The whine Jason makes is high enough that Gar would put good money on human ears not being able to hear it. He and Snake share a look and then plod over to crowd in. Jason says, “Oh, it’s group hug time, now, huh?”

He doesn’t move, though, doesn’t pull away.

* * *

Gar stays in wolf-shape for the ride back. It’s…quieter, the way the tiger is. Everything’s just slightly more straightforward. He’s still Gar. He’s just a more chilled-the-fuck-out Gar. It’s nice. Dangerous, because of how seductive it can be, but nice.

Also, in that form, Jason doesn’t fight when Gar half-sits on him. He complains, “Jesus, what the fuck have you been eating?” but then settles, Snake colonizing the other half his lap. Gar falls asleep to ear skritches.

* * *

They get back two and a half days later as the sun is setting in San Francisco. Hank and Dawn are cooking, with Connor watching in rapt fascination. Kori and Rose are sitting at the island. Krypto trots toward them, paying no mind to the fact that Snake is growling low in his throat. Hank looks over and Jason stiffens. There’s a second where Gar thinks everything’s about to go to shit, again, but then Hank smiles a bit and says, “Almost late for dinner.”

Dick says, “Anything but that,” and moves to join Kori.

Kori looks at Gar. “Lose your clothes?”

Gar’s wearing a t-shirt and some shorts they picked up in a truck stop on the way back. It’s not his most fashionable moment. “Unplanned shift.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Trouble?”

Gar shakes his head and picks up Snake. “Not unless you count this guy.”

Rose’s eye goes wide. “Did we get another dog??”

“I got a dog,” Jason mumbles. “He’s mine.”

Rose wilts a little and Jason sighs. “His name’s Snake.”

Gar isn’t certain Rose even knows she touches her patch, but she does, just for a second. Gar says, “So, what I’m hearing, is that it’s 80s B-movie night, is that right?”

“That is absolutely right, kid,” Dawn says with a laugh.

“What’s a B-movie?” Connor asks. 

“Absolutely fucking right,” Hank confirms.


End file.
